Best Of MetaFilter

Merrick Thread Co., The spider and the tiger (on black background), Boston Public Library via Wikimedia

How do I help my spider friend through the winter?

“Will you walk into my parlor?” by REM Photo .. Have patience I'm off grid (cc by)

Pop-and-lock synchronized dance spiders; sonascope's beloved Pilea Cadierei, and that time the spider plant survived a Chrysler; signal on signals: the web before the web. Speaking of which, does anyone fancy a crawl across the multiverse? And in case you missed it, a loving look at barking spider plumes, plus "How convenient that a spider god was available to answer this question."

Funnel Web with venom by dnatheist (cc by)

It turns out that there IS actually enough vascular tissue in your eye to carry funnel web venom to your heart. Not enough to need anti-venom, but enough to make your heart do very strange things and enough to make you go a very strange colour. A trip to the emergency room ensued.

The next day a trip to the opthomologist revealed that the venom had acted like a strong acid/ alkaline and burned a hole in the iris, just missing the pupil (no glass cuts thankfully!). Long-term, the sight in my left eye is a bit worse than it should be. I also get "spider eye": if I'm tired or stressed or jetlagged, my spider eye goes incredibly red, hot and bloodshot for about 24 hours. It's not the most spectacular spidey-super-power of them all, but I'm happy enough to have it :)

Alice Russel-Wallace discusses why Shaun of the Dead is THE definitive opthamological treatment for spider envenomation incidents.